Get Fit For 2016: Week Six

Nicola Cher Geismar is the founder of City is my Playground, which is about inspiring all types of people and ages to view their city and urban spaces around them as an adventure “play”ground.

Flex and stretch: Week Six

Follow this short movement flow which focuses on stretching out the hamstrings (backs of thighs), building strength into the gluteus (butt) muscles through supported squats on the rail, and waking up the upper back, through strengthening and extending the spine in between shoulder blades. Great flow to do if you want to increase more strength and stretch into your legs and introduce back bending into the spine. You can do at least 10 reps of the supported squats on the rail and hold the hamstring stretch on both sides for 25 seconds.

Flex in the City: Week Six

Let the street structures become your friends and help support your shapes and body weight. Get creative with the types of stretches you can flex with your body in connection to our urban furniture. A good way of practicing your back bends is finding a wall or, in this case, a fence, to support your hands pushing into it, whilst focusing on lifting your collarbones up to the sky and of course squeezing in some support from your gluteus muscles. As you progress you can think of walking your hands lower down to the floor, bringing a deeper back bend into your spine.

Photo by Millie Mensah

Nicola would love to see your flexes in the city. Prep yourself with a hand sanitiser and go hunt out some street structures that you can use as a prop to stretch and flex with, round the city. Tag ‘em up to #cityismyplayground on Instagram, and she will feature some that show off the most creative use of our street structures!